What Makes Me Who I Am
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Now that Kurt's a Broadway star, Kurt and Blaine are finally moving into a penthouse uptown. While moving Kurt's things, they stumble across a box of Kurt's old costumes from all the shows he did before he became a star, and Kurt explains to Blaine why he held onto them all these years. Kurt H. Blaine A.


**A/N: **_Written for the Klaine Advent Drabble prompt 'uniform'. AU where Kurt and Blaine didn't meet until they moved to New York and after Kurt had already started working towards a career as an actor._

"So, I think this is the last of them," Blaine mutters through a strained grunt, stacking three more carefully packed boxes of Kurt's belongings by the loft door. "Whew!" He stands in the entry way with his hands on his hips, staring at the haul ready to go downstairs to the moving van, double-parked by the curb. "We sure managed to pack a lot of stuff into that tiny space we called a room." Blaine takes a deep breath in and lets it out, waiting for witty commentary from his fiancé, but he's met with silence. "Yup," Blaine continues, "it'll be nice living in that penthouse uptown. Think of it, Kurt – closets." Blaine chuckles and looks over at Kurt, curious about the cold shoulder he's receiving. Kurt doesn't seem to be paying any attention to Blaine's remarks as he sits on the sofa, quietly sifting through a box of old costumes, a nostalgic, dreamy smile quirking the corner of his mouth as he holds up each one for inspection, sighs, then folds it and returns it to the box.

"What have you got there?" Blaine asks, walking over and sitting on the arm opposite Kurt to witness the way Kurt's face lights up with each reveal, his smile brightening with some costumes, his face softening with others.

"_These_ are all the costumes I've ever worn for every performance I did before I hit Broadway," Kurt explains.

"I didn't know they let you keep them." Blaine reaches out and Kurt hands one over – a black leotard with abstract fluorescent markings, and some kind of metallic tutu attached. He looks at Kurt and raises a questioning eyebrow, but Kurt simply laughs.

"Don't ask," he says with a wave of his hand vaguely in front of his face. "Anyway, some of the theaters I worked at before you knew me had no budget for costumes, so I had to pay for my own. I sure as hell wasn't leaving them behind."

"There're tons," Blaine comments, leaning forward and looking at the costumes still left in the box. "How many shows were you actually in?"

"Oh, I lost count somewhere after thirty." Kurt reaches down into the box and pulls out another, his face turning serious. "You know, Blaine, these aren't just costumes. _These_ are the uniforms I wore through every stage of my development as an actor. They are an integral part of my past," Kurt says with a wistful sigh. "They represent every paltry role, every bit part that pushed me up the ladder to stardom." Kurt lays the costume in his hands down across his lap and smooths out the wrinkles in the fabric. "These are the dues that I paid to get to where I am now."

Blaine looks at Kurt, his fiancé – so talented, so accomplished, doing more in his thirty years than actors twice his age. Blaine can't help but feel proud, imagining already a small corner of their new walk-in closet dedicated to enshrining these priceless artifacts of Kurt's rise to stardom.

"So, we're keeping these?" Blaine asks.

Kurt's face snaps up quickly to meet Blaine's, an odd expression of disgust on his face.

"Oh, heavens, no," he exclaims. "Burn them, shred them. I never want to see them again," Kurt says, tossing the last of the costumes into the box and kicking it sharply with his foot.

Blaine's brow furrows, his fingers curling into the costume in his hands, protecting it from the possibility of being torn from his grasp, his mind still caught up in the romanticism of Kurt's past.

"B-but…you just said…"

"Blaine…" Kurt stands from his seat and points at the box with the apparently reviled costumes, "they also represent every time someone ever pigeonholed me, stereotyped me, or stuck me in the background. Every time I lost a leading role I truly deserved and was given some sort of three-second walk-on as a consolation prize…"

"So, why did you keep them?" Blaine asks, looking down at the box in confusion.

"To remind myself that I didn't belong in the background," Kurt says proudly. "I am a star – a _Broadway_ star." Kurt chuckles at Blaine, looking at him with a slightly mixed expression, and winks. "Besides, my ass looked fantastic in a lot of those."


End file.
